by Cassiopeia » Sun Apr 25, 2021 2:07 pm
A few words before I do the questionary.
I guess it’s pretty obvious that my memories are not the happiest ones here. For me there was way too much frustration involved in this game.
I’ve read several times on the board what great experience it was for the first players to help each other out, go through everything together and all that jazz.
I do understand that, I’ve experienced it too with other games. But this is something that can only be shared by those that play the game when it’s brand-new.
What I gather from reading many, many posts is that lots of people had their share of frustration, too. Being frustrated as a community though and share it on the forum might be a way to get over it more easily.
However, when this phase is over, what’s left is a huge load of posts, and searching for answers even contributed to my frustration a lot. There are so many posts with speculations and assumptions, often very misleading and it’s really hard to find the actual answer – if even possible.
It all boils down to the fact that, if you fully want to play the game, you need to buy the guide, which I don’t agree with. A game should be playable without.
And let’s face it – the ones who eventually provide the answers are mostly those that do have the guide, which relativizes “figuring out” things together.
Also, I’m tired of the argument that a game shouldn’t be completely finished on the first playthrough. That’s simply not true. Players have different personalities. Some might be okay focusing on the main quest on the first playthrough as suggested so vehemently, but others (and I’m most definitely not the only one) are completionists and hate leaving things behind.
Btw – people with the guide could actually complete everything right away too (and if not, then the guide isn’t worth its money) …
Now off to the questions:
Your opinion about Caius?
Horrible. When I read the intro dialog, I really considered quitting immediately. All I thought was PLEASE NOT yet another moron with a bloated ego!
Nasty characters have become a regular in Aldorlea games, and it’s really getting on my nerves. Yes, Random was quite narcistic, but I don’t remember anything and everything he said being mean and nasty. He was just a teenager, so you would expect him to be somewhat narcistic. But he did truly change throughout LF – which btw makes his behavior in cameo appearances now very implausible.
For Caius the plot required him to be that way, which became obvious later in the game, so alright. But what about Marlyn and Lilith?
Your opinion about Marlyn?
Also horrible. Towards Caius her submissiveness made me want to throw up, and towards Genevieve she was sooooo nasty without any reason at all.
And what’s this whole slave thing about? Even with Wendala I never found that credible. Marlyn could as well just have said she was gonna be Caius’s servant. But slave? Why would even the most egoistic man want a slave?
Your opinion about Busho?
Not horrible, but also not credible. Caius and Busho were constantly just rude with each other. They didn’t seem to even like each other, so it makes no sense they were friends, let alone Busho deciding to come with Caius. Why would he follow that annoying kid?
In my end, when Busho died, Caius said there would always be a part of him missing. What part? Someone to be rude to?
Your opinion about Genevieve?
Another exaggerated extreme. On the one hand she’s allegedly a renowned witch, on the other hand she doesn’t have the slightest bit of self-esteem. She lets that little pink devil bully her in the worst way without ever saying a word – other than even apologizing for nothing.
And she really got on my nerves with her constant complaints about being cold. Well, get DRESSED!
Your opinion about Lilith?
Horrible! So bossy and again rude and mean for no reason at all! And what I truly hated about her is the way she bullied Genevieve. Firstly, Genevieve is not fat (I’ve seen remarks on this on the forum, and I saw that DS said the same thing in his post below, so I’m not the only one who was upset by this), but even if she was, leave her alone! This is not funny. Nothing to joke with. I see overweight kids at school every day, and I see them suffer although some of them are the sweetest kids you could wish for.
And not even once in the entire game any of the other characters would defend her. Not even Busho, who allegedly has a crush on her.
Also, like DS said, I too got really upset about her saying Genevieve’s name wrong all the time. That’s incredibly disrespectful and humiliating. Just another bully trait.
Your opinion about Penelope?
Okay. She didn’t join the bully gang, so that’s a plus.
Any opinion about the 2 optional characters (if you found them)?
Great additions. Without them doing the shrines would have been really hard.
Who is the strongest character, and why? And the weakest?
Strongest: Genevieve for having to endure all this nastiness and bullying and yet sticking with them.
Weakest: Marlyn for not making the right decision and keeping Caius from destroying this orb.
Who's more handsome, Caius or Busho?
I can’t really tell from a drawing. All I can say is I like Caius’s artwork slightly better.
Who's the prettiest, Marlyn, Genevieve, Lilith or Penelope?
None. Their artworks are dominated by boobs, and one looks more stupid than the other. When I got Penelope, I thought it couldn’t get more ridiculous – until I found Nyx. That actually made me laugh out loud. Her picture looks like her boobs aren’t even part of her body, but just two air balloons glued on.
I don’t get it and I don’t get it and I don’t get it. This is getting worse with every game. While there used to be that one half naked boob girl in every game, they now are all that way. WHY??? What kind of men sees women that way?
I’d really like to know how this is working. Does the artist draw pictures according to the sprites and then sells them and customers just have to take what they get, or are the pictures custom made, meaning he gets instructed to draw them that way?
Who hits harder, Caius or Random (Laxius Force)?
Depends on the weapon you put on them.
Who is wiser, Penelope or Luciana (Laxius Force)?
Luci. I didn’t find Penelope to be particularly wise.
What age do you think is Penelope?
300. They were about to celebrate her 30th ----- …. decade, I would say.
What's the best place to live, Fay (1st village), Deckersville (port town), Canacopra (Island village), Elven Village, Saint Town or Master Z's bunker?
Fay – too small, and Caius lives there.
Deckersville – probably lots of drunk sailors.
Canacopra – so much sand, heat and barely any green.
Saint Tower – too … saint. Also, too cold.
Master Z’s bunker – no daylight and fresh air.
So Elven Village it would be.
Did you purchase the plant in Hermit Island village and if so, did you like it?
I did and it produced stuff like a good plant would – and I never used a single item, lol.
Your opinion about the story?
Set up slightly different with the Caius/Marlyn plot, but other than that the same as usual. Kill the demon or the world is doomed.
Your opinion about the graphics and sounds?
Graphics were very nice. I particularly liked the Evil Shrine.
Sounds …. well, the music got turned off quite soon. I tried. I really tried. But hearing the same repetitive music again and again and again makes me crazy.
The other sounds were mostly on when I started playing because I don’t like hearing nothing at all, but that selection jingle was sooooooo annoying, I usually ended up turning the sound completely off at some point.
Your opinion about the gameplay?
• Side quests: I’ve said a lot on the forum already, so I’ll just sum it up.
In my opinion many of the quests weren’t fair at all. A quest that is set up so you miss it unless you’re either very, very lucky or you buy a guide is a bad quest. Being thorough and drawing conclusions that make sense (like trapping a bird that is INSIDE a cage) should make any quest solvable, even if it requires several steps.
Missing a lot also means missing rewards, that would be very helpful, therefore it means a much harder playing experience.
Also, a lot of backtracking and running through big areas again and again was involved (just thinking of those manticores), and that gets very tiring at some point.
• Fights: They were too long from the start. There’s so much to explore, and those endless fights slow things down so much. However, I got used to the way things were – until I came to the volcano. From that point on it became annoying. There were those Ifrits. I fought one as a boss, and then they were regular encounters? It took forever to take them down. Same for the Gazolick at the bunker, and even together with those Evol bats (that were quite hard to deal with on their own). I had no spell or skill that really worked well against them. The beats book said they are weak to Ice. Nice, when I don’t have a single weapon or spell/skill with that attribute.
I played on Normal mode, and when choosing this I don’t expect things to be that hard. Normal mode is no longer what it used to be.
And I couldn’t even get out of the fights because the Escape rate was simply ridiculous. If you put such hard enemies in a place, give me at least a fair chance to escape!
• Battle system: I liked it. I do like the skill/spell thing a lot. At first gaining TP is hard, but later there are the Tonic Herbs that give TP, so that’s good. I also liked being able to see the order of action. Though there’s one thing that I didn’t understand and like. Sometimes the monster’s turn would have been after one or two of my characters, but suddenly it would take action anyway. Why?
Also, sometimes it was my character’s turn, but when I chose a spell (like Caius’s Gadameon), he would not cast it right away, as though he needed time to charge or something. That was annoying because had he cast it immediately, he would have killed the monster, but since he didn’t, the monster could deal more damage until my “hero” was finally ready.
I liked the sideview battles with animated sprites. The monsters were mostly just “pumping”, but the characters taking action is cute. And also the little details, like them changing their weapon depending on what they have equipped.
What I definitely didn’t like was that, especially earlier in the game, most monsters were faster than almost all of my characters. So in every fight I just could watch them take damage at first. Even zombies were faster than me, and that really doesn’t make any sense.
• Menus: As I said on the forum, the endless clicking to get to the menus was tedious, especially for equipping my characters. Often when I got a new piece of equipment, I wouldn’t even know what it was. So I always had to get into every single menu to see if it’s a weapon, an armor, a ring – whatever. And sometimes even more than once, because not every character can equip everything.
The idea of the beast book is really cool. I would look up the monsters to see if they could drop anything, and then I would kill them until I found out what their drops are. I also used to look up their weaknesses. However, the menu screen put annoying limitations on that because you can only see 5 lines. I don’t know how many times I couldn’t see their actual weakness, so it ended up being only partly useful.
• Equipment: I liked that not only the weapon itself could give status ailments, but also some other equipment, so even if there was no weapon for a character that, say, could make the enemy bleed, together with another piece of equipment it was still achievable.
What I found confusing though were the descriptions. I was often not sure if it meant that a piece of equipment would give something or prevent from it.
What annoyed me was the countless pieces that I found that no one could equip. Same in shops. I miss the shops from older games where I have choices to pick from and buy what I think is best for my playstyle.
• Skills/spells: Generally I liked the idea of levelling them up, but I quickly realized that it was impossible to level them all. So many remained unused because I focused on those that worked best on a variety of monsters and tried to level those up.
In the end I wonder though what difference it actually made. Yes, they became “cheaper”, but other than that I could never see much difference in the description. Like the epic Mace of Megadeth. It was always ATK x8 – DEF. Yes, it more than halved its cost, but other than that, did it make a difference?
What was your favorite moment and why?
There were two, though the first one was followed by great disappointment. It was getting the flying saucer. That was a WOOHOOOO feeling – only to find out that I couldn’t visit anything. Also, the world map being a loop is extremely confusing.
The second one was finding out that the monsters on that one little island dropped Twin Rings. I got one for each of my characters that I wanted one for. That sure made a difference!
What's the game's best/strongest sides?
Firstly, the game is incredibly full of details. A lot of work went into those screens for sure. Like so many notes on walls to read, the Elven Forest with all the plants to pick with Lilith’s spell and stuff like that.
Then the battle system. As I said before, I really liked it.
The beast book was a great asset with some downsides, as mentioned before.
And I really liked getting enough restoratives. There were drops from beasts and they could also be purchased. Especially the MP and TP ones. MP restoratives tend to be rare in many games, which I hate, because on the one hand you need to use spells to get along, on the other hand you can’t restore MP unless you go rest all the time (if there’s even an opportunity). And being able to refuel TP easily was a tremendous help too.
Favorite and hardest dungeons?
Favorite: Ice Shrine and Evil Shrine. I saw that people said the Evil Shrine was hard, but I have to say, the two shrines were finally the way I wish fights would have been throughout the game. I had the optional characters, which certainly made a huge difference, but with them all being well levelled and having good equipment, those were really enjoyable dungeons for me.
Hardest: Volcano (first time) and bunker where those really hard monsters were.
Favorite and hardest sidequests?
Favorite: Hi-tech glasses. That was creative and new. The only stupid thing about it was the part with the SR in Genevieve’s hut. Like she’d forget how to move her own chair …
Hardest: Hard is the wrong word. Many quests weren’t hard, but unfair, as I stated before. I particularly disliked the ones that required boosts. Basically the idea is good, but the kind of boost needed often doesn’t make sense (like why do you need AGI to explain a joke), and trying things out was boring for me. Plus, never knowing if you needed a special boost later in the game because they are so rare. Another Why?
Most dangerous enemy?
Dangerous, I don’t know. The hardest to kill for me was that bat robot at Master Z’s office.
Who did you send to the Evil Shrine at the end?
Caius.
What did you think of the ending?
There were so many bosses throughout the game, and some were really tough. Many weren’t susceptible to any status ailments, some hardly took any damage and restored almost as much as I hurt them.
I expected the final battle to be long and hard. Well, turns out that taking that demon down didn’t take much longer than an Ifrit or a Gazolick. It was stunned most of the time, took quite some damage and all it ever summoned was cute little zombies that weren’t dangerous at all.
When the fight came to and end, I thought, now something else will come. Maybe it changes its shape and comes back. Or the sisters appear again. But nothing! I wiped it out just like that!
I don’t know, maybe the reason was that not everyone might have the optional characters or the best equipment from quests and SR’s, and while some other, much harder bosses were optional, this one wasn’t. I don’t know, but for me this battle was too easy (and everyone knows that I’m not a hardcore player who likes to be at the edge of dying all the time).
The final dialogs were nice. Eventually some kindness and compassion, but I’m sure if they had cameo appearances in other games, they’d probably be just as nasty and rude again.
How does this game compare to past Aldorlea epics (Laxius Force, Millennium, The Book of Legends, Witch Hunt etc)?
I prefer the new battle style, but in the old games I prefer what “Normal mode” was like. That has changed a lot. It’s much harder now. Therefore, the whole playing experience has completely changed.
What I also really miss is weapons from back then. Yes, weapons still improve throughout the game. But I loved getting that special wow-effect weapon that would wipe hard monsters out. Or the really expensive one that I’m willing to go grind for so I can afford it.
What has changed most are the personalities of characters. I’m really, really tired of rudeness and bullying. What about kindness? Why not a hero with a big heart from the start?
Then all this humiliation of women. I can’t remember a single male character in any of the games that I played that would have been depicted in a similar way.
There’s this line at one place. An NPC says, she likes doing what she does best, which happens to be cleaning. And I think Caius says, “She’d make a good wife.” What the ***?
A person like him might make such a remark, but none of the others says anything? Really?
The game announcement warns of “mature dialogues” and “revealing outfits”. I’m sorry, but none if this is mature. Quite the contrary, it more suits a 16-year-old boy’s dreams. Those things are indeed very immature and also very superficial. I wish we were to get more characters with depths and a real personality again.
I didn’t expect this to become THAT long, so if anyone bothered reading to the end, there’s only one more thing left for me to say.
People perceive things differently, and I expect my criticism to be at least acknowledged. Opinions don’t have to be shared; we are all different. But I get the impression (like I did in the past) that everything I say is being blocked off.
You don’t know how many people out there, that never post a word, perceive things similarly as I did and never come back for another game.
Of course it’s nicer to read the praise after putting a lot of work into a project. But getting to see things through different eyes might be beneficial, too.
